Micro blogging
= Microblogging = Microblogging is a broadcast medium that exists in the form of blogging. A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically smaller in both actual and aggregated file size. Microblogs "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links".1 These small messages are sometimes called''microposts''. As with traditional blogging, microbloggers post about topics ranging from the simple, such as "what I'm doing right now," to the thematic, such as "sports cars." Commercial microblogs also exist to promote websites, services and products, and to promote collaboration within an organization. Some microblogging services offer features such as privacy settings, which allow users to control who can read their microblogs, or alternative ways of publishing entries besides the web-based interface. These may include text messaging, instant messaging, E-mail, digital audio or digital video. Services The first microblogs were known as tumblelogs. The term was coined by why the lucky stiff in a blog post on April 12, 2005, while describing Christian Neukirchen's Anarchaia. Jason Kottke described tumblelogs on October 19, 2005: However, by 2006 and 2007, the term microblog was used more widely for services provided by established sites like Tumblr and Twitter. Twitter for one is especially popular in China, with over 35 million users tweeting in 2012, according to a survey by GlobalWebIndex. As of May 2007, there were 111 microblogging sites in various countries.[citation needed] Among the most notable services are Twitter, Tumblr, FriendFeed, Cif2.net, Plurk, Jaiku and identi.ca. Different versions of services and software with microblogging features have been developed. Plurk has a timeline view that integrates video and picture sharing. Flipter uses microblogging as a platform for people to post topics and gather audience's opinions. PingGadget is a location based microblogging service. Pownce, developed by Digg founder Kevin Rose among others, integrated microblogging with file sharing and event invitations. Pownce was merged into SixApart in December 2008. Other leading social networking websites Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Diaspora*, JudgIt, Yahoo Pulse, Google Buzz, Google+ and XING, also have their own microblogging feature, better known as "status updates". Although status updates are usually more restricted than actual microblogging in terms of writing, it seems any kind of activity involving posting, be it on a social network site or a microblogging site, can be classified as microblogging. Services such as Lifestream, SnapChat, and Profilactic will aggregate microblogs from multiple social networks into a single list, while other services, such as Ping.fm, will send out your microblog to multiple social networks. Internet users in China are facing a different situation. Foreign microblogging services like Twitter, Facebook, Plurk, and Google+ are censored in China. The users use Chinese weibo services such as Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo. Tailored to Chinese people, these weibos are like hybrids of Twitter and Facebook. They implement basic features of Twitter and allow users to comment to others' posts, as well as post with graphical emoticons, attach an image, music and video files.[citation needed] A survey by the Data Center of China Internet from 2010 showed that Chinese microblog users most often pursued content created by friends, experts in a specific field or related to celebrities. Usage Several studies, most notably by the Harvard Business School and Sysomos, have tried to analyze the user behaviour on microblogging services. Several of these studies show that for services such as Twitter, there is a small group of active users contributing to most of the activity. Sysomos' Inside Twitter survey, based on more than 11 million users, shows that 10% of Twitter users account for 86% of all activity. Twitter, Facebook, and other microblogging services are also becoming a platform for marketing and public relations, with a sharp growth in the number of social media marketers. The Sysomos study shows that this specific group of marketers on Twitter is much more active than the general user population, with 15% of marketers following over 2,000 people and only .29% of the Twitter public following more than 2,000 people. Microblogging has also emerged as an important source of real-time news updates for recent crisis situations, such as the Mumbai terror attacks or Iran protests. The short nature of updates allow users to post news items quickly, reaching its audience in seconds. Clay Shirky argues that these services have the potential to result in an information cascade, prompting fence-sitters to turn activist. Microblogging has noticeably revolutionized the way information is consumed. It has empowered citizens themselves to act as sensors or sources of information that could lead to consequences and influence, or even cause, media coverage. People now share what they observe in their surroundings, information about events, and their opinions about topics from a wide range of fields. Moreover, these services store various metadata from these posts, such as location and time. Aggregated analysis of this data includes different dimensions like space, time, theme, sentiment, network structure etc., and gives researchers an opportunity to understand social perceptions of people in the context of certain events of interest.]Microblogging also promotes authorship. On the microblogging platform Tumblr, the reblogging feature links the post back to the original creator. The findings of a study by Emily Pronin of Princeton University and Harvard University's Daniel Wegner have been cited as a possible explanation for the rapid growth of microblogging. The study suggests a link between short bursts of activity and feelings of elation, power and creativity. While the general appeal and influence of microblogging seem to be growing continuously, mobile microblogging is still moving at a slower pace. Among the most popular activities carried out by mobile internet users on their devices in 2012, mobile blogging or tweeting was last on the list, with only 27% of users engaging in it.